Communication in Online Games - Specifically Dota 2

If you are following video games right now you have probably heard that online games are big. Some companies are shoehorning in online multiplayer to games that didn't need it, some are releasing games that only contain an online multiplayer, and some are requiring what are essentially single player games to have online connectivity at all times or it doesn't work. Amazon paid $970 million for Twitch a year ago this August and Google, or Alphabet or whatever, has been rolling out YouTube Gaming to compete. There are numerous other well established electronic companies that are trying to work their way into the market and take a piece.

I am seriously into Dota 2, also known as Dota, also known as Defense of the Ancients. Sort of like League of Legends only less popular but more complex. Dota is a 5v5 game where you each choose an avatar with 4 different abilities. You level up your hero and buy items to improve your hero by fighting the other team until one team becomes too strong and they destroy the opponents base. Its more complex than that but that is all you need to know for my general point. The best team wins ... normally. The game places you with people that are supposedly at the same skill level as you so in theory there is no one that should be amazingly better than anyone else. All the players are roughly even in skill, and therefore the teams are as well.

Yet sometimes one player seems especially bad or amazingly godlike. They crush all opposition or they die repeatedly to the enemy.  Assuming this doesn't happen, the team that communicates better wins?  Well, that depends on if either team communicates in any meaningful way. Communication is pretty limited. On average I would say one person (beyond myself) talks and one person uses a mic. And I don't mean two people talk per game, I would say that you are lucky to get either of those but not both. I am repeatedly astonished by the lack of communication in a team game.

I use a mic and I have played quite a number of games without anyone speaking back to me, though I continue to use the mic to communicate. Not a single typed word to show that someone is listening to what I am saying. This isn't unusual, about a quarter of my games are like this. When people do communicate there seems to be three groups of people. The first are those for which the online gaming world is famous: trolls. These are people dedicated to making your experience worse. They verbally abuse teammates with racist, sexual, and physical insults. Sometimes these people play amazingly and lead the team to victory. More often they play terribly and drag the whole team down to defeat. If you ever meet any of these people in a game, just mute them. The second group is similar but not quite as bad, the quitters. These people seem to have a desire to find any reason to assume the game is lost. In Dota, when a game is over most players type gg, which stands for “good game”, but quitters will see one of their teammates make a mistake and say gg even one minute into the game. Then they will then refuse to cooperate with the team, and normally this means a loss. The third group of communicators are the ones that you love to play with, friendlies. Friendlies communicate in a normal way, saying what they plan to do, warning other players of danger, and complimenting players for success. I feel that I would rather lose ten games with four friendlies than win one game with four trolls. Its a hundred times more enjoyable. Obviously there are different levels of friendlies. Some people say only the most basic information while others actually try to keep a conversation going the whole game. But friendlies are rare, maybe one every other game, which leads me to question, why people are playing a team game if they have no desire to communicate?

Dota uses a ranking system to keep track of player ability. Players are on a scale of 0 – 7,000, with 0 – 3000 being the 75% of the player base, 3000 – 3700 for the next 15%, and 3700+ for the top 10%. When I started I was at 2700, and I have now worked my way up to 3700. And yet I have noticed only minimal improvement in the area of communication. So here is why I think people don't communicate.

When I first started I was nervous. Even though the people your playing with don't know your name, will never meet you, and can't contact you outside of Dota, you will be judged by them and they will tell you how you are doing for the forty-five minutes that you are stuck with them. They could say,” well, you messed up there but its ok,” but are more likely to say, “noob” or some other more unpleasant insult. It is a lot of pressure to play, just like there is pressure in presenting a work or school assignment to peers. So when I first started I didn't speak. I didn't type anything, and I definitely didn't use a mic. Like all new players I was terrible. All new players are terrible, as a leading Dota player is happy to tell you in, Welcome to Dota, You Suck. (If I haven't scared you away from playing Dota, this is an excellent guide.) And like all new, terrible players I was verbally abused. I was told how horrible I was, and many vulgar insults beyond that. Its funny, even now, at a reasonably skilled level, where all players on the team are technically the same skill it still happens.

After a game in which I did ok but not great (and we lost), I received a team invite from one of the players I had just played with. I joined the group, and he/she typed – terrible carry, uninstall dota, never play again – or something like that and then left. They messaged me personally after the game just to insult me. That had never happened to me before.

Eventually, I realized that if someone was going to speak, I better start. I enter all games with a typed, hello, and then chat with the mic. I talk even if no one else does the whole match. For this effort I noticed a small, but significant increase in communication.

But why don't others, I wondered. Maybe those who don't speak are nervous, too afraid to suffer the abuse of their unknown teammates. I was once. Yet, the people I'm playing with people who have hundreds and possibly thousands of games completed. I suppose, since players are willing to abuse at all levels, players remain mute at all levels.

Others might not have a mic. Typing is laborious. It prevents you from playing the game, because you are using the keyboard to type, when you need to be using it to play. I can't count the number of times I've begun typing something, only to suddenly need to use the keyboard to fight. And then I'll panic, stuck between hitting enter and delivering a half completed message to my team, or finishing it but losing the fight. In my anxiety I'll often try to cast spells with the message still going, but no spells appear, just a lengthening message of gibberish – lets push the qwerewq – and so on as my hero dies, spells uncast and totally useless.

But the more frighting thought, and remember this is a team game, is that they have nothing to say or no interest in saying it. These are two separate ideas really. A player could essentially view Dota as a single player experience that they play with others. You need your teammates to win, but is it possible to have fun without them? Not if you really desire to win, but I can see that some players are so dedicated to their singular play-style that they essentially ignore anything everyone else on the team. The expect no help, and render none as well. I've seen people like this, and normally they pick heroes that they think suit this play-style. Heroes that can be effective in solo fights and pushing lanes (Like Ember or Tinker). But would they be more effective playing with the team? Of course!

That my teammates might have no interest in communicating is frustrating. That they might have nothing to say is just as difficult to deal with. It seems like quite a few players only communicate when they are frustrated. As a support player, who is supposed to be helping the others, I wish they would say something when they first start having a difficulty. If the solo mid player is losing their match-up I could help him or her early on, but if they don't say something I might not notice since there is an awful amount of stuff happening. They probably don't say anything because they are embarrassed that they need help and afraid of abuse. I've been there, but if they don't communicate this early they will become more and more frustrated till they eventually say, support didn't help mid gg. Then they will play worse. It would have been more constructive if they had communicated their need earlier.

There are quite a few people that write about Dota, saying people need to communicate in a more polite manner. That would be excellent. I'm not against that. Chris Thursten writes an excellent weekly article called Three Lane Highway that often covers his zany and reasonable attempts at communication. Merlini comments on the need for a positive attitude, and is great to listen to as well, but I think they are failing to say that pub players would be better off if they communicated more to their teammates. Both larger issues, from how they are doing in the laning stage and item plans, to little things like what they are doing during a team fight. I think this is a skill that would deliver the most significant boost to a players win rate.

Just don't try this when playing against me  :)

On a side note, I recently received Rainbow Six Siege when I bought a new Nvidia Graphics Card during the holidays and though I know I am terrible at first person shooters I decided to try it. I thought it would be a miserable experience playing another 5v5 game with collection of trolls, quitters, and silent allies, but even though I'm, as I already said, horrendous, I found that that community is wicked nice. In about ten hours I was only once yelled at, and it was probably because I panicked when the enemy started defusing the B bomb while I was in the room with A bomb and I shot the first person which moved. This happened to be a teammate of mine :(

I would switch from Dota to Rainbow Six just for the community but, I am pretty good at one/terrible at the other.